Protest slams Yuba chancellor's pay boost

More than 2,000 signatures were collected for a petition calling on Yuba Community College District trustees to rescind the $29,282 pay raise for the chancellor, hundreds were told at a Tuesday rally protesting her salary boost.

"We are mad," said Lisa Jensen-Martin, president of the Yuba College Faculty Association. "And we're sick of this."

Speakers, including the student body president and candidates running against incumbent trustees, denounced the raise for Nicki Harrington that increases her salary to $249,282 amid cutbacks and layoffs.

"Chop from the top," chanted those attending the rally in front of the administration building at the Linda campus.

Jensen-Martin said each college district trustee receives about $10,000 in health benefits yearly and that they spend thousands of dollars on fees for attorneys taking up issues that include the state open meeting law known as the Brown Act.

Juan Cervantes, president of the associated student body, said recalling college district trustees is the only way to "cut this cancer out of this community."

Adrian Lopez, spokesman for the college district, said after the rally that "the position has always been the same as far as the district is concerned."

He has noted Harrington has agreed to donate her raise to a scholarship and "challenge grant" for the college district. Trustees have said the increased salary is needed to attract candidates when Harrington retires and that she had been the lowest paid chancellor in the state.

Faculty member Brian Jukes took issue with the figures from the college district on Harrington's pay and salary increase. He said a voluntary 3 percent pay reduction she took is temporary and her salary will reach $252,457.

Jukes also questioned Harrington's plans to donate all of her raise back to the Yuba College district.

"This is a tax write-off," he said. "She isn't affected."

A flyer entitled "Chancellor Harrington's Raise: Myths vs. Facts" handed out at the rally includes the assertion that the increase coming in her last years as chancellor will elevate her state employee pension.

"Any raise given now will cost taxpayers well into the future," the flyer states.

Yuba College is the second-smallest multi-college district in California, the flyer adds, and most such districts serve twice as many students as the YCCD.

Students and staff attending the rally, which included a white cake with the words "Let them eat the cake," were urged to attend the Feb. 10 board of trustees meeting at the Woodland campus when the chancellor's salary increase is expected to be discussed.

Tom Page, labor relations representative for the California School Employees Association, said before the Tuesday rally that Harrington's raise represents a tactical error during a time of budget cutbacks.

"I was suprised that they would offer it," Page said. "And that she would accept it."

Instructors in the Yuba College district face layoffs that have hit other staff, Page added.

"Everybody's go a bullseye on them now," he said.